DENVER – Some relatively new faces emerged in prominent places Friday night as the Metropolitan State University of Denver women's volleyball team picked up a 3-1 (25-11, 22-25, 25-10, 25-17) victory over South Dakota School of Mines and Technology.
 
Steady seniors Taylor Duryea (Logan, Utah/Sky View) (16 kills, 15 digs) and Santaisha Sturges (Parker, Colo./Regis Jesuit) (11 kills, 19 digs) were up to their old tricks, but freshman Avaline Lai (Boulder, Colo./Fairview) hammered a career-best 14 kills while hitting .458 in her first extended playing time of the season, redshirt freshman Mikaela Kubiak (Kalamazoo, Mich./Portage Central) made her first career start and had a career-best 23 assists and Caiden Rexius (Eaton, Colo./Eaton) had career highs of 18 digs and two service aces while playing libero. Jessa Megenhardt (Berthoud, Colo./Berthoud) matched a career high with 27 assists.
 
"We're still trying to find our best lineup, even at this point in the season," MSU Denver coach Jenny Glenn said. "We're just trying to put the right people in the right places."
 
The Roadrunners (9-6 overall, 5-2 and fifth in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference) bounced back from a disappointing loss with a vengeance in allowing only 10 first-set points.
 
But they struggled through a mistake-plagued second set against the Hardrockers (4-12, 1-6).
 
"I counted about 15 errors," Glenn said. "I think that set is on us. I think it was us trying to work our way through our slump by trying harder, and that was part of it. And when you have new people you may have a few more errors, so you have to be smarter with the ball sometimes."
 
The Roadrunners hit .285 for the match, including .400 in the opening set and .353 in the third set.
 
"We made a lot of errors in the second set," Sturges said. "But we flipped it around, called that out as a team and recognized we made a lot of errors and the majority of their points were because of us." 
 
Alyssa Kelling (Merton, Wis./Arrowhead) (.333), Sturges (.320) and Duryea (.316) joined Lai in hitting over .300.
 
Mines' Dana Thomson, the RMAC leader at just over 4.0 kills per set, was held to nine for the match.
 
"This week of practice, we've been working really hard at our skills," Duryea said. "We had a really good week of practice, and to see that transfer and see the things we've been working on transfer into the match is a really good feeling. We just want to keep it going."
 
MSU Denver returns to action with a 5 p.m. home match at the Auraria Event Center on Saturday against Black Hills State (5-9, 2-5).
 
"We're taking it one day at a time, trying to get better," Glenn said.
 
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